Too bad they were already on their 3rd set of head gaskets by the time "they lived".

Not trying to be an *** by discounting the message of the commercial, but Subaru doesn't really have anything going for it other than the AWD.

 

Uh.....?

C'mon, man!

This is weather. Climate happens over centuries and humans haven't been destroying the "climate" long enough to change anything. I'm still waiting for the ice age we were supposed to have in the 80's.

I don't like the 6 months of straight dry summer and 95-105 degree weather we've had either but I expect one hell of a cold winter (and welcome it) to make all of the "exodii" question their choices to move here this summer.


Back to the story at hand........

I get the strangest looks from most everyone who comes in the yard since Stinky is the first thing people see when they drive in. I tell the story of how "they walked away" and most of their jaws hit the ground. It's pretty amazing.....and no, pictures do not do the damage justice.

Stinky is going on an honor walk somtime in the next month; donating his heart so another can carry on.

 

The head gasket issues were a big problem and prevalent in certain engine models, but for the most part the vehicles are very reliable across the board. Our 2008 3.6L Subaru has needed nothing other than fluids, spark plugs, brakes and an accessory belt change (and an AC relay) for the past 13 years and 140,000 miles. Our Subaru was built in Indiana and has Japanese engineering in and through it, I am good with that.

The Subaru AWD system is second to none and we take ours on Jeep trails and off-road quite a bit in order to get to truly magical locations in this great nation of ours. Just a month ago we took it up a mountain trail that was washed out to a lake at 7,500 feet that was secluded and an amazing place to be. We did some rainbow trout fishing and enjoyed the wilderness.

To each their own though and people MUST have confidence in their vehicles, whether that is a Subaru, Ford, GM or Audi. That is why I bought a 7.3L to use as a tool and tow pig!


Rich, you still have the Prius as a buzz around for work vehicle?

 

My friend handed me the oil filter for his Subaru a couple weeks ago. I thought he was joking when he said it goes in his car. I've seen shot glasses bigger. Heck, all 3 oil filters on my zero turn are bigger

 

Food for thought:

We haven't been doing squat to the planet for "centuries" - we didn't have the means before we discovered oil (a bit of coal use, but nothing serious). Before WWII, the U.S. was pretty much an agrarian society, with limited industry. Once we were prodded into producing mass quantities of weapons of war (jeeps, tanks, ships, machine guns, planes, etc...) a whole new society was created after the war - consumerism. We learned we can make a lot of stuff fast and cheap - much of it requiring vast quantities of coal and oil (coal was primarily for power generation for lights and factories, oil was for transporting all that stuff and all those people buying stuff). The whole planet changed after WWII - 80 years ago, not hundreds.

During those 80 years, the global population tripled - with a good share of that population digging up carbon (that had been safely stowed away for eons) and throwing it in the air as fast as humanly possible. We aren't as efficient at dispersing carbon as ma nature, but we can get it done with enough time and effort - which we have been doing. Look at any open-pit mine that has been around for a long time (Butte for Cody), and you can see how we can make a mess when we really put our shoulder into it.

Now.... I'm not saying we are moving the lever of climate change, but one must at least lean into the data a little before swearing on a stack of bibles that we aren't.

The biggest concern are two things: The polar ice flows, and the permafrost.

1. Polar ice flows cool the northern seas by way of reflecting solar radiation (white surface), and it's... well... ice... floating in water. The polar ice is absolutely shrinking, nobody disputes this. The white is subsiding, leaving dark water (which absorbs solar radiation and increases heat). When you have a glass of ice, it stays pretty much the same temperature until the last bit of ice is gone - then it warms up to ambient temperature quickly. What happens when the last bit of polar ice is gone at even one pole?
2. The permafrost holds a whole butt-ton of methane gas - (way beyond anything all the cows on the planet can produce). Once climate change starts melting the permafrost, methane (greenhouse gas much worse than CO2) will escape, accelerating the warming effect.

Both concerns lead to a rapid warm-up of the climate. So far, we have mild symptoms of climate change - record-beating heat and fire seasons in the Western US... every year. Lake Powell - emptying for years. Lake Mead - emptying for years. This year might be a turning point in the PNW - the climate is killing stuff. Young evergreens were destroyed by the heat, so there will be an impact on the supply of Christmas trees this year. We lost fruit crops in a big way... I should know - I'm in that industry. If one of the poles or the permafrost "melts"... you tell me what you envision.

Happy, happy. Joy, joy.

Whether or not one believes we made this, ma nature is in charge now - and there ain't nuthin' we can do to reverse it before great harm is done. Go ahead and drive a Prius if it makes you feel better. I do, but it's because it saves me money - not the environment.

 

I have a few questions and observations myself...My first and biggest question is...the Grand Canyon and others were carved by rivers and water. Where did all that water go? I didn't think it could leave the planet. The area where my camp is, in Upstate, NY was carved by glaciers who knows how long ago but they didn't just disappear recently. People often talk bout CO2 and greenhouse gasses but I have to think that just burning all that oil has to be giving off some heat. Sure, it's a big house but c'mon, that's a lot of oil being burnt.

 

It wouldn't be the heat of burning a gabillion gallons of jet fuel, ship oil, gasoline, propane, LPG, and what have you - the earth is a very effective air conditioner. The problem is when you tinker with the chemistry of said air conditioner. Remember, the earth doesn't cool what we do... it cools what the sun does. I can charge up my truck batteries in one day with a solar panel that's about the size of the engine hood of Frankenstinky - that's how much energy is burning down on us when the atmosphere filters it on a sunny day. The atmosphere has a chemistry (plus the magnetic field) that protects us from some pretty nasty stuff that the sun emits.

If you are curious, Look into the "safe" room for the astronauts in the International Space Station. There are days when ol' man Sol is spouting off about something, and the astronauts don't have the full Earth's atmosphere shielding them from these fits - so they have to "hide" in a specially-built module (US-built Destiny or Russian-built Zvezda) so they don't get excessive radiation exposure.

Anyway... we're changing the chemistry of our sun shield. My granddaughter can't break my house - but she can light a match. Changing the chemistry of our atmosphere is us lighting the match, then nature takes it from there.

As for the water... it went the same place it goes today. The oceans and seas are salty because of everything washed from shore into them.

 

What amazes me is how much oil has been pulled out of the ground and burned in the past 150 years or so (making modern life possible), and yet there is still seemingly no end of it. It's like 80-90 million barrels of the stuff a day, every day. The peak oil guys 15 years ago were sure it would have run out by now or at least would have become too expensive to continue hunting after. That was seemingly wrong. It's still so cheap the American fracking companies have a hard time turning a profit on it.

 

Long time no hear Rich. I am glad you and the wife are doing well. Nice pics. You have anyways been a good storyteller, always enjoy your posts.

 

You're right! Bad terminology on my part

Headwaters would have been correct. The source of it starts down at the south end of the Columbia Valley in the outflow of Columbia Lake, and then heads north and picks up quickly in the wetlands surrounding the river as it goes up the Columbia Valley, before turning west and heading to Revelstoke. I'm about 100 miles north of the lake Trail is just before it turns and crosses the border south!

 

That's a ways up there - I've been North to Revelstoke. We stopped at a campground on a lake, where we rented a teepee and a canoe - and put them on our credit card. It may be rustic up there, but it's not without the trappings of modern society.

 

What is mind boggling to me is the water shortages throughout much of the country yet the Columbia River dumps 265,000 cubic feet per second of fresh water into the Pacific. That's almost 2 million gallons every second!!

 

Yeah... when the planet dries up, everybody will move close to the Columbia. I've already reserved my spot.

Here's something else that's mind-boggling: The Columbia has a vast energy supply. The elevation change from the headwaters to the mouth is epic, and there are about as many hydroelectric dams on the river as will fit. Along with that, wind is crazy-reliable near the series of Columbia gorges, so multiple huge wind farms are within sight of many of the gorges. We have a glut of electricity here, and the power rates in my county are the rock-bottom lowest in the USA. Last I checked, it was something like 2.6 cents per Kwh. We make so much power that we have to run more power lines before we can run at max capacity in our region. Our PUD is building a plant that takes excess electricity and river water to make Hydrogen for the Seattle bus system. We are as green as green gets.

 

Washington is great except for the all the homeless people in Seattle and that Inslee guy. I mostly grew up in the Puget Sound region.

 

Oh... you went there. Seattle/Tacoma and Portland don't count - they are a couple of the Woke islands (as are many metropolitan areas in the U.S.). Don't get me wrong, I am all about absolute equal treatment of my fellow human beings - regardless of the nature of their birth. What I'm referring to is how everything went askew in the name of the Woke movement. Defund the Police and it will all work out? Let the homeless do whatever they want... where they want? Amp up the taxes to pay for every mistake made by every city council member now in office?

I boycott all big cities, unless I have to fly.